Life is not fair. That was my mother’s response back in freshmen year when I came home distraught over an English quiz earlier that afternoon. To this day I recall reading the mythology of Aphrodite and Demeter and studying the relationships between various Greek gods and goddesses, yet still sitting down to a quiz that I barely could answer. I could not wrap my mind around why studying and hard work had not been enough. In my mind, I felt that my work merited success; I questioned how and why those who blew off homework and dozed off in class managed to take the quiz without a hint of trouble. I found myself thinking good should be met with reward, while bad should be met with punishment, however, my mother’s words made me realize that nothing is that simple.
In general, I feel that most of us inherently presume this notion of matching good with good and bad with bad. As children, our parents warned us that Santa Claus was watching; we heard that Santa brought presents and rewards for well-behaved girls and boys and brought coal for those who instigated mischief. In the same way, parents often reward children for helping out around the house with an allowance or gold star. Beyond childhood, these associations still exists. We have come to associate good grades with studying, a sports team’s success with practice, and a good stage performance with rehearsal. We have implemented laws and rules with consequences to reprimand those who choose a path of evil. In essence, we have come to believe in a sense of karma—that what goes around comes around. We have been conditioned to believe that nothing happens to a person that he does not for one reason or another deserve.
However, realistically this is not the case. Do innocent, young children deserve to die before they have had an opportunity to live? Do people deserve to be persecuted for defending their civil rights? Did I deserve to get a 68% on my Greek mythology freshmen year? The answer to these questions is probably not. Theoretically, the subject in each case has done everything right: children are the picture of good and innocence, people who defend their civil rights are making a movement to benefit mankind, and I was well-prepared for my quiz, but, as I said before, life is not that simple. Realistically, those who do good deeds and work hard are not always met with recompense; bad things do indeed happen to good people. On the same note, those who cheat the system are not always punished. At times infuriating, the enigmatic ideas of good and evil as well as reward and punishment show us our fates do not directly relate to our actions. Our lives, regardless of our actions, involves both reward and punishment--both success and failure.
With an unpredictable fate, many question why we are to act ethically and not succumb to evil. In my mind, each of us has an ingrained sense of good and morality. We work hard, treat others with kindness and respect, and approach life with a sense of integrity, knowing that it is the right thing to do. I feel that this goodness reflects an underlying sense of hope. Liu Xiaobo recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his advocacy of human rights and peaceful political change in China while serving an eleven year prison sentence for his activism. Xiaobo embraced good, in spite of punishment, for the mere chance of making a positive difference for the people of China. Though not all of us make as substantial sacrifices as Xiaobo, I feel that acting ethically—even the little things, like offering your seat to an elderly woman or taking those few extra seconds to hold the door open for someone—is the key to a positive, hopeful future; it is the key to holding our society together and maintaining good order.
In the Book of Job, God punishes Job, a seemingly upstanding man who “was blameless and upright,…feared God, and turned away from evil.” Job was always one to thank God for his large family and fruitful lifestyle and make sacrifices to God on behalf of his children. Though one would expect such piety to be continually rewarded, God causes Job to suffer. God strips Job of his family, servants, and possessions, and later covers him with boils. Job, in turn, questions God as to why he has been met with such hardships, much as we often question “why me” when faced with adversity. Despite his friends’ belief that Job must have done great wrong to deserve such punishment, God did not punish Job for evil. We do not know God’s motives for inflicting pain onto Job; God has the power to reward, punish, and determine fate. As Job comes to realize that he cannot understand God’s reasoning, we, too, must come to understand that there are forces in life that we cannot control. All we can do is treasure triumph, learn from failure, and otherwise hope for the best.
No comments:
Post a Comment